More Powerful than Freeza and Aizen Put Together

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Manga and anime can be known for having some plot arcs that seem to go on forever.

Namek? Probably the most notorious long arc ever in anime and manga.

Soul Society? Hueco Mundo? Also pretty long.

But none of them are any match for Akagi‘s “Washizu Mahjong.”

For those of you who’ve never read the manga or watched its anime adaptation, Akagi is the story of a genius/psycho who risks his life in high-stakes games of mahjong, where his superior gambling ability, keen perception of the psychological, and his blatant disregard for his own life make him a legend from as young an age as 14. Eventually, he ends up playing an extremely wealthy and sadistic man named Washizu Iwao, pitting his own blood (literally) against Washizu’s vast fortunes. To top it all off, the game is played with 75% of the tiles transparent. Imagine playing Poker or Yu-Gi-Oh! with 75% of your hand showing at all times.

The anime devotes its entire second half to Washizu. That’s 13 episodes, or 1/4 of a year. When you look at the manga though, the Washizu arc began in 1997, and it still hasn’t concluded even to this day. That’s 15 years on the Same. Exact. Opponent.

While it’s easy to call this filler, it’s probably not so simple. One rumor I’ve heard is that Akagi is so popular that it’s the main reason the magazine it runs in (Kindai Mahjong, home to many, many other mahjong-related titles) is able to stay afloat.  Also, when your long arc is one and a half decades, it goes from being a stalling tactic to probably what the readers actually want.

Now what I find kind of amazing about this is that Akagi actually does quite a good job of keeping the Washizu mahjong interesting. It probably shouldn’t, but like Akagi and the magical sands of hell, it can reverse fortune in an instant. And I think the reason why it’s able to stay readable far longer than any single arc probably has any right to is that the manga can rely on the rules of mahjong (albeit modified with transparent tiles) to keep it grounded in some sense.

Bleach can come up with an ultra final bankai, and Yu-Gi-Oh! can make up cards on the spot with never-before-seen abilities. There’s no such thing as inventing new hands in mahjong. Akagi can play somewhat fast and loose with how the game turns out due to the luck factor (just like when Yugi pulls out the Black Magician at the right moment), but he can’t pull out something which doesn’t exist in the game of mahjong, otherwise it would ruin the integrity of it. Keep in mind though that this is the type of “integrity” where cheating is A-OK, as I think that also explains the appeal. Even in a never-ending game of mahjong, the thrill of Akagi the deceiver is still ripe.

Manga and Women in Refrigerators

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Introduction

If you were to ask an avid and informed fan of superhero comics about controversies surrounding the portrayal of women in the cape-and-mask genre, you might get answers having to do with the male gaze, or the number of female protagonists, or perhaps even whether or not comics need to do more to attract female readers. In every case though, the focus can potentially lead to the phenomenon known as “Women in Refrigerators.”

Coined in 1999 by comics writer Gail Simone (probably most famous for her work on Birds of Prey, a series starring a team of female superheroes), “Women in Refrigerators” refers to a tendency for female characters in superhero comics to be either killed, abused, raped, or depowered in what seems to frequently be a move to anger or inspire a male superhero into action, or to intensify the hatred between the hero and his nemesis. Named after the Green Lantern character Kyle Rayner depicted above (who not only literally finds one of his girlfriends in a fridge but has also lost a number of significant others in his career), WiR has been an on-going discussion among comic fans for the past 12 years. In spite of the age and scope of the topic though, the conversation has not really penetrated the realm of anime and manga.

Given arguments over things like moe and lolicon and how Japanese society treats women, what of “Women in Refrigerators in Manga?” Furthermore, whether they’re informed or ignorant, with the number of people who have spoken or written about WiR in the superhero comics community, what would happen if they all focused their attention more towards manga?

Casca from Berserk, a strong female character horribly traumatized by brutal rape

When initially thinking about the topic, a number of questions came to mind. Would they look at manga and find it to be more sexist than superhero comics? Is the lack of a similar phrase or concept in manga a potential problem for it and any movements towards improving manga? However, I soon realized that WiR and its surrounding discourse are very much shaped by the superhero genre itself; evidence of this includes the whole idea of being “depowered,” something which holds a lot more weight in a setting where super powers are the x-factor in the story.

Of course, comparing one genre to the entirety of manga makes things quite unfair, but even when you narrow it down to, say, shounen fighting and action series, or even a single magazine such as Shounen Jump, the setup of superhero comics has particularly unique consequences.

Conceptual Paradox in the Superhero Genre

The basic superhero (of which Superman is probably the most well-known example) is someone who is somehow stronger, faster, and overall better than the average human, and this allows them to right wrongs. Where the regular authorities falter, the superhero-as-vigilante can come in and thrash the bad guys and make the world a better place. These settings rely on an environment fairly close to our own, one grounded in a similar default reality so that we can compare the ideal of the superhero to the everyday, but it also makes for a world that can start to unravel if the concept is pushed too far.

Adding a superhero to an otherwise normal world can transform it entirely, and when you begin to really question the effects a particular superhero can have on his environment,  you wind up with questions like “If Mr. Fantastic is so smart, why hasn’t he found a cure for cancer?” While there are comics which do explore in detail the influence superheroes can have on society (Watchmen, for instance), and the Mr. Fantastic question isn’t some magic contradiction that destroys the superhero genre, it does point to the idea that a typical superhero story has to set its boundaries if it doesn’t want such questions jumping out at its readers.

The idea of boundaries isn’t limited to superheroes, as just about any story which adds something “superhuman” while wishing to maintain a semblance of normalcy has to draw the line somewhere. The tricky thing with superhero comics, however, is that the manner in which they have developed over the years encourages readers to find those limits through the prominent usage of a shared universe. When a comic is just about Batman, you can see how he fights crime and strikes fear into the seedy underbelly of Gotham City. When you cross him over with Superman though, suddenly Batman is put in contrast with a near-omnipotent alien who can outclass him fifty different ways. The reason to join them together is not to just make Batman look bad but rather to afford both heroes sufficient respect, so it requires Batman to have something extra to make up for it.

Where once he could just be a clever and ingenious individual, Batman is now the smartest man on Earth, armed with the most complex contingency plans ever conceived by man, all to make him Superman’s equal. In manga terms, this would be the equivalent of putting Monkey D. Luffy and Son Goku in the same universe and having to find a way for Luffy to be as powerful and influential as the Dragon Ball protagonist, like saying that Luffy’s rubber body makes him more resistant to ki blasts or something. As Marvel and DC actively promote their shared universes, this type of comparison becomes almost inevitable, and when you’re comparing, then the superhero universe comes under at least a certain degree of scrutiny.

If you then add the on-going saga aspect that is “continuity” to that mix, then the world of the hero can be scrutinized not just in terms of space, but also time. Superhero comics encourage a long-term view of its characters, where the events build on top of each other to create a loose history. And given the longevity that some of these characters possess, an action 30 years ago can continue to be associated with that character. In a comic from 1981, Avengers character Hank Pym hit his wife Janet , and it became a recurring topic all the way up until she died a few years ago. If they were to just ignore it and have the two characters act like nothing had ever happened, then it would have been perhaps silently condoning spousal abuse. However, because they kept it, it wound up defining the characters in certain respects. Although one can argue that this enriched their characters, it also meant that once it was done, neither of them could return to what they were prior to it. And while things are re-written or counteracted on a somewhat regular basis in superhero comics, this shared universe setup means that just one bad decision by one creator can potentially define a character to the point that no amount of reboots or retcons can undo its influence.

One Woman, One Refrigerator, One Universe

Let’s go back to manga for a little bit and pick a title that most definitely has female characters that are WiR candidates: Fist of the North Star. Now I love this series and consider it among my all-time favorites, but its female characters range from essentially cheerleaders to useless. Going in the style of the original Women in Refrigerators post, I’m going to list them with a list of ways they’ve been “fridged.”

Yuria (above) abused, forced to become Shin’s lover, kills herself (not really), contracts a fatal illness from long-term radiation exposure

Mamiya turned into a sex slave, her lover Rei dies, stops fighting entirely

Lin almost forced to have Kaioh’s baby, brainwashed into falling in love with another man

And so on and so forth.

Women are kind of a non-factor in Fist of the North Star no matter what they say about love and no matter how many women nobly sacrifice themselves. But at the same time, the fact that Fist of the North Star ran in Shounen Jump doesn’t mean that its portrayal of women exists in the same environment as One Piece or Toriko or City Hunter. Misogyny can exist, and it can even exist in multiple titles from the same publisher in the same magazine to the extent that you could call the whole thing sexist, but there is less of a risk of the comics congealing into an entrenched, constantly self-reinforcing “super misogyny.”

With superhero comics and their long continuity and shared universes, it can be incredibly easy to permanently “poison the well.” In this environment, a single instance of a WiR does not stand alone in its own conceptual space, but ends up existing in a greater universe, and then stays there in the timeline potentially forever. While this is not inherently a bad thing, it means that more innocent and simplistic stories and concepts have a harder time maintaining that innocence. If someone said The Cat in the Hat and Schindler’s List occupied the same continuity, it would be very hard for Dr. Seuss’s characters to be quite the same when the idea of genocide hangs over them.

This can even apply to the degree to which women are sexualized in comics. Somewhat like how “Hollywood Ugly” requires you to believe that the attractive celebrity in baggy clothes and glasses is meant to be homely, if you take a title where the aesthetic portrayal of women is geared primarily towards the sexual gratification of men and put it in the same world as a comic where the attractiveness of women is depicted in a more neutral fashion, then there is bound to be a conceptual clash, especially if the two were to cross over directly. Either the overt “butt and breasts out” poses would have to be acknowledged directly with respect to how a woman would normally pose herself (accounting of course for stylistic flourish), or the more neutral design would have to be subsumed by the overtly erotic aesthetic. If respect is supposedly afforded to both portrayals, then there winds up being a compromise, much like Superman and Batman’s situation, that generates at least a certain degree of schizophrenia.

It can also be easy to poison the well of a shared universe because once that idea takes root in one corner of the world, it becomes easier for it to spread to other parts as well, and I think this is what ends up really shaping Women in Refrigerators in terms of the superhero genre. While I may be assuming things too much, I think it’s far easier to corrupt an innocent idea than it is to make a corrupted idea turn innocent, and so every time another woman gets killed or raped or depowered, it means less and less of a chance for that whole thing to be turned around entirely, which means the rate at which the universe becomes “darker” winds up being far faster than the rate at which it becomes “lighter,” unless deliberate steps are taken to work against it.

Given everything I’ve said about the danger of a shared universe, does this mean that any sort of shared universe will lead to similar problems? Not necessarily, but I think that regardless of which direction that universe goes, compromise is almost inevitable. When Neon Genesis Evangelion with its emphasis on psychological turmoil enters the crossover environment of the Super Robot Wars games, its story and characters end up less traumatized overall. When Lupin III meets Detective Conan, his role is more of a lovable scamp than a hardened thief. Even taking darker series and making them lighter to fit in another work is a form of compromise. However, neither of those bother to maintain their continuities for prolonged periods. Moreover, while a shared universe does not guarantee Women in Refrigerators, the way that superhero comics have turned out means that it is constantly poised to do so, and as far as I can tell, the discussion surrounding WiR is very much about a concerted effort to turn things around, to deal with what may very well be a case of inertia.

Towards Methods for Manga?

A quote from Gail Simone in 1999 clarifies one of the original purposes of Women in Refrigerators:

My simple point has always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won’t read comics. That’s it!

This is not as much of a problem for manga, even titles and magazines designed for boys, as many publishers in Japan have learned ways to court a female audience. Some titles in Shounen Jump are especially known for their sizable female readerships: Saint Seiya, Katekyou Hitman REBORN!, and The Prince of Tennis, to name a few. Granted, most of these titles have primarily male casts and so the portrayal of female characters is not the primary draw, but that is also getting into another more complex issue of gender-based character identification. I’ll leave this as something of an aside for the sake of not going too off-course, but will say that this might mean that it doesn’t take outstanding portrayals of women to attract a female audience, but at the very least ones that won’t make them feel uncomfortable to be women.

As it is, the “Women in Refrigerators” discourse is especially suited for the superhero genre. Its concerns and the manner in which it can quickly spread to other stories are at least partly predicated on the structure set out by decades of development. If WiR is to be applied to manga, or even a certain genre or magazine/publisher, then it likely needs to be modified to fit a very different history, both in terms of manga itself and the Japanese culture surrounding it. Personally, I’m not entirely sure what changes need to be made. It’s probably an endeavor that is too big for one post, but I can throw out some possible directions.

I think the killing, rape, and abuse aspects probably translate adequately as is, but to go back to the “depowered” aspect of WiR as something very particular to superheroes, perhaps it would be a good idea to find something that is not quite so specific. If we’re dealing with a genre like shounen action, your Dragon Ball‘s and Naruto‘s and such, then maybe it’s not so much a matter of depowering as it is being quickly outclassed or made irrelevant. A lot of characters in these works often get some kind of improvement to their abilities, but that is made obsolete by the fact that every other hero gets stronger at a quicker rate. While this is not exclusive to female characters, it may be something worth tracking among female characters to see how they’re made to be functionally useless.

If we’re looking more at sexually-charged (but not necessarily pornographic) titles, maybe it would be wise to keep an eye out for degradation or humiliation. For example, how often are characters made to do something or wear an outfit that not only embarrasses them, but sexualizes them in the process? What of humiliation as a sexual tool, even when it’s meant to be light-hearted prodding and not something more extreme like torture?

Maybe it would also be a good idea to take a look at one popular title and to note where the female characters are mistreated solely to advance the male characters’ stories. After that is done, the next step would be to look at works that may have come about as the result of its popularity, whether it was because there was a clear influence, there was a blatant attempt at riding the wave, it was the next title readers flocked to, or even if there was some kind of editorial mandate to feature more of those stories. Do some of those WiR-esque ideas and portrayals still exist? Are they getting weaker or stronger? This may be a way to track things across one magazine or one genre without having the shared universe of superhero comics.

Of course, this is all assumes that WiR is not an issue when the female readership has been established and sustained sufficiently, but what about the possibility that the phenomenon not only exists in shoujo and josei, but that such events might occur in greater numbers compared to manga geared towards male readers?

What I’ve provided in the ideas above would not comprise a complete framework, but then again neither did the original list of Women in Refrigerators. There is a distinct possibility that with each genre of manga, even if you were to narrow it to titles somehow similar to superhero comics, that it would require its own adjustments be they subtle or broad. It may even be the case that in the end, we find out that WiR cannot be applied to manga no matter how many modifications are made, but I think it would still be a worthwhile endeavor to figure that out in the first place. I’m sure we’d learn something along the way.

The Fujoshi Files 36: Hina

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Name: Hina (ひな)
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: Single
Origin: Tonari no 801-chan

Information:
Hina is a junior high school student and younger sister of 801-chan. Relatively inexperienced as an otaku, let alone a fujoshi, Hina often makes rookie mistakes such as shortsightedness when it comes to the history of things. She has even gone so far as to believe that Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia had his name based on Athrun Zala from Gundam SEED. For this reason, Hina can often get on her older sister’s nerves.

More generally, Hina is at the perfect age to suffer from Chuunibyou, the delusional illness that comes from being a junior high student otaku and thinking that a number of things are fantastically cool and deep. Like her sister, she is fond of the Prince of Tennis, but has differing tastes otherwise.

Fujoshi Level:
Although one might suspect that her older sister’s influence is responsible for Hina becoming a fujoshi, this is not the case. Hina was able to reach that mindset entirely on her own, even while 801-chan was trying to hide that aspect of her own life.

The New and Improved Fate/Zero Opening

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Though they got a little confused about past and future.

To Tsunacon This Weekend

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This Sunday, February 12, I will be attending the Dutch anime convention Tsunacon in its new location in the city of Rotterdam, which so happens to be where I was a couple of weeks ago watching the premiere of the Ace Attorney movie.

Seeing as I’m generally bad at finding my way to places, I expect to get lost at least a couple of times on my way to the convention center, but hopefully things will turn out all right.

I’ll likely have a badge to identify me in case anyone wants to say hi, though as for some kind of unique clothing, it all depends on the weather (for those of you not currently in Europe, it is so unbelievably cold here!).

If you want, you can also read my coverage of last year’s Tsunacon in its old location in Sliedrecht.

(I’ll miss that tiny train.)

Genshiken II (Nidaime, Second Season, Whatever) Due Out in the US in (Probably) September

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I’m really just referencing Anime News Network referencing me (who in turn found out via Brian Ruh) about Genshiken Second Season, as well as informing anyone who is still not aware of the fact that Kodansha USA has the license for the new Genshiken.

This was all based on this Amazon page by the way. It says it’ll be out by September 4th, but I think we all know how Amazon dates can shift around. At the very least, we know who has it (and it makes sense, seeing as Kodansha USA is reprinting the original Genshiken).

I already buy the volumes in Japanese, but I am not entirely against buying them once more in English. That way I can share them with people!

Lastly, “De Maniax van Ogiue” indeed.

Utena via Gurren-Lagann

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This isn’t really anything mind-blowing, but I find that one of the themes of Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann can be used to explain a certain aspect of the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena in a rather straightforward fashion. As I’ll be discussing the ending to Utena, I think a spoiler warning is more than implied, but I’ll put one here anyway because I think both Utena and Gurren-Lagann have final conclusion that shouldn’t be experienced in the form of a paragraph. I advise you not to read this post unless you’ve seen both.

In the “epilogue” of Revolutionary Girl Utena, we see Ohtori Academy only nearly everyone has forgotten about Utena. At first, it seems like Utena ultimately had no impact on the students there despite everything that happened in the series, but little by little the show reveals subtle differences in the characters’ behavior, such as the fact that Wakaba now has a friend who looks up to her as much as Wakaba herself looked up to Utena. Then we see Anthy with Akio, where Akio is trying to revive the rose duels once more. Anthy, however, ends up walking away and (we presume) permanently out of Akio’s life.

If we look at Gurren-Lagann, the drill is one of the very overt themes of the series. The titular robot pulls them out of thin-air, the concept of the infinite power source that is “spiral energy” is derived from the same shape, and it appears in the show’s most famous quotes (“Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!”). From that whole drill motif (though I can’t remember if it’s from a production interview or if it’s said in the actual show) comes the following idea: humanity is like a drill in that it moves forward with every revolution.

Now I believe that the Japanese word Gurren-Lagann uses for “revolution” is different from the one that Utena uses (回転 kaiten, revolving vs. 革命 kakumei, life-changing), but I think it explains the ending to Utena quite well. In the end, Utena did not defeat Akio, she did not permanently undo the rose duels, Ohtori Academy still stands, and Utena is gone from the world. However, it’s clear that she did indeed bring forth a revolution, and in that one revolution all of the characters were able to grow a little. All of the characters, that is, except for Akio. While Anthy is able to finally will herself to break free of the cycle that Akio has built up, Akio himself is shown to be a man who can no longer learn, who is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Like the drill of the  Gurren-Lagann, for the revolution that Tenjou Utena induces, (nearly) everyone moves one step forward.

The Ups and Downs of Suite Precure

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With Smile Precure set to debut it’s a good time to look at Suite Precure. I’ve seen the series lambasted a fair amount, and while I believe Suite Precure to be a flawed series and perhaps one that in the end couldn’t quite overcome a good deal of its problems, I find that a good deal of these criticisms kind of miss the mark as to what exactly went wrong, conflating one mistake for another kind. Thus, I intend to give a fairly thorough assessment of the series, especially in terms of characterization and character development.

I will not just be comparing it to Heartcatch Precure! (which is unfair for most shows in the first place), nor will I be trying to ask Suite to be any more than the children’s show that it was meant to be.

Also, this post is FULL OF SPOILERS.

When the previews for Suite Precure started coming out, they advertised the series as being about a couple of girls who have to fight together but have trouble getting along due to being total opposites. While the franchise has always dealt in contrasting personalities, it was never quite to this degree, and the premise stood out to me. And so begins the first episode, where we’re introduced to Hibiki the energetic athlete and Kanade the organized and studious baker, former friends who have since grown apart. Inevitably, they gain the ability to transform into the legendary warriors known as Precure (Hibiki as “Cure Melody” and Kanade as “Cure Rhythm”),  help the good guys (Major Land) defeat the bad guys (Minor Land), and begin to mend their friendship, though not without some trouble.

Hibiki and Kanade’s personalities start the series with a fairly interesting dynamic, and at first it’s fun to see their little clashes here and there. Once the show decides that they’ve become good enough friends, however, the two seem to forget their past tension almost entirely, like it had never happened at all. As the show progresses, the way it irons out the “wrinkles” in relationships once development has occurred turns out to be a major recurring flaw in Suite Precure. This problem is most apparent with the villainous cat Seiren, whose turn to the side of good  as “Cure Beat” is a satisfying story arc, but who suddenly turns into an almost entirely different character afterward.

That is not to say that the show is devoid of strong and consistent characterizations. Kanade, for one, seems to hold onto her personality much more tightly. In addition, there is the character of Ako, who is revealed in the second half of the show to be not only the mysterious “Cure Muse” but also the princess of Major Land. While Seiren had the more powerful story arc leading up to her reveal, Ako’s revelations manage to build on her existing character rather than rewriting it, resulting in a character who not only sensibly knows more about fighting the enemy (being the princess of the land from which the Precures derive their power), but also works hard to make up for the age difference (at 10 years old when the average Precure heroine is 14, Ako is the youngest Cure ever). She also acts as a potential wish fulfillment character for the younger girl audience.

A special mention needs to be made for the mascot character Hummy, whose ditzy and optimistic personality sets her apart from other previous magical companions in the franchise, and honestly makes her one of the more entertaining parts of the show (something I probably would’ve never expected). Still, the fact that this more thorough and long-term characterization was unable to extend to all of the characters, especially Hibiki (who is the lead of the series), remains a problem.

The Precure franchise for the most part has never had “overarching narrative” as its strong suit and Suite is certainly no exception, but past titles were able to use memorable characters to make the plot feel more involving even when its story is paper-thin. The biggest side-effect of the way character resolution in Suite Precure induces selective amnesia is that the characters’ personalities sometimes end up either under-developed or insufficiently defined, which then results in less emotional investment in the characters’ struggles. As such, towards the end when Hibiki as Cure Melody begins to act the role of a serene savior who expresses the idea that music is better for comforting sadness than eliminating it outright, it feels like an abrupt development in Hibiki’s character that just can’t be explained sufficiently by what had happened up to that point. It is certainly possible for a sudden display of maturity to make sense*, but that wasn’t quite the case here.

Overall, Suite Precure is a series that is capable of both good characterization and good character development, but can’t seem to bridge the gap between them. When it tries to, it often ends up compromising both. Because of the way it seems to not have a firm grasp on its own characters, the buildup of the series towards its climax feels weaker, and I think it makes for a show that, while okay, could have been much stronger had it simply been able to maintain a better long-term memory.

———————————

*Episode 40 of Ojamajo Doremi # concerns Doremi’s little sister Pop wanting to play the piano, only to find out that the family had sold theirs years ago. During the episode, we find out that their mother was once a concert pianist whose career was ended by an injury, and whose her lingering regrets ended up making Doremi reject the piano when she tried to learn it. Rather than being against Pop playing piano though, the normally wacky Doremi not only gives Pop the chance the opportunity to practice, but also brings a piano back into their household. Doremi’s mature attitude about the whole thing definitely stands out as unusual for someone who is typically more of an airhead, but comes across as “uncharacteristic” rather than “out-of-character.”

THE COMIPO TRIAL EXPIRES TODAY SO HERE IS ONE LAST HURRAH

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In case this somehow convinces anyone to purchase it: Official Site

If you want to see true mastery of Comipo, head over to Dave‘s Kawaiikochan Gaming no Korner.

No Objections Except the Good Kind: Miike Takashi’s Ace Attorney

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Last week was the beginning of the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and with it came the international premiere of Miike Takashi’s film, Ace Attorney, or “Gyakuten Saiban” as it’s known in Japanese. Based on Capcom’s video game franchise of the same name, Ace Attorney follows a bumbling wet-behind-the-ears defense attorney named Phoenix Wright and is quest to figure out the truth behind a string of murders leading back 15 years (and defend his clients along the way) using a combination of wit, courage, and irrefutable evidence. Opposite him is prosecutor Miles Edgeworth, a former friend of Phoenix’s from childhood whose ruthless approach to justice is a far cry from both Phoenix’s ways and how he used to be.

(Note that the film was English-subtitled with the official English-language names, so I’ll be referring to the characters as such (Phoenix Wright instead of Naruhodo Ryuuichi).)

The Ace Attorney video games utilize a very “anime” aesthetic, and for anyone who saw the preview images or the trailer, the first thing that stands out is the fact that all of the characters’ costumes and even the sets are very close to the original source. Phoenix looks like he practically stepped out of the tiny DS screen, and when someone wins a court case in the film, even the way the background actors clap like stock animation looks like it came straight out of the games. However, what isn’t so obvious from the previews is the fact that, while the faithfulness of the dress results in distinctly spiky hair, frilly collars, and unique color combinations, the actual colors of the backgrounds and even the clothing itself are quite subdued. Phoenix Wright’s suit may be blue, but it’s a very toned-down blue that is a far cry from the bright, primary colors that mark the video games, and rather than clashing with the anime elements in the film, the more realistic use of color actually helps to bridge the gap between the iconic anime elements and the use of live actors. Whereas the original games’ aesthetic presents a world and motif unto itself, with the way the film looks there is a sense that our world could possibly someday turn into the larger-than-life world of Ace Attorney, however small those chances are.

In a way, this gives the film a rather prominent science fictional element, as if it’s asking, “What if the criminal justice system were like this?” Indeed, Ace Attorney even presents the unique gameplay of the video games (using evidence to find contradictions in witness testimony) as a transformation of Japan’s court system. In the story of the Ace Attorney film, the Japanese government has set up a new judicial method in order to deal with the increased amount of criminal cases. This “Bench Trial” is a court where evidence is king and which must conclude after a maximum of 3 days, giving both prosecution and defense a limited amount of time to make their cases before the judge (not a jury) makes a verdict. Moreover, in this court, evidence is presented in the form of Minority Report-esque holographic projections, flown to the center of the courtroom through the signature cries of “Objection!”, “Take That!”, and “Hold It!”, helping to bolster that larger-than-life feel. Just in case I’m giving the impression that the film is mainly serious business though, I have to point out that the movie will make the occasional sudden tonal shift like in a Tezuka manga in order to lighten the mood (and succeeds in doing so without disrupting the pacing of the movie).

The storyline and court cases of Ace Attorney is familiar to anyone who played the original, though it combines a few of them together, both for the sake of time and for all of the characters involved to have their own denouements by the end. As I have played those games and thus pretty much knew how the cases would go, I cannot comment on whether or not the narrative events of the film would be a surprise or difficult to figure out for someone new to the series. However, what I can say is that the actors do a very good job of portraying their characters, conveying a strong sense of both their personalities and their approaches to handling trials. For me, the two most outstanding performances in the film are by Phoenix Wright’s actor Narimiya Hiroki and by Ishibashi Ryou, who plays the wily veteran Manfred von Karma. Narimiya does an excellent job portraying Wright as a very clever and observant but inexperienced attorney; when he sees evidence of a clear contradiction, you can see him struggling to connect the dots that he knows have to be there, gradually forcing the words out until the crucial element comes to the surface of his mind. Ishibashi meanwhile comes across almost perfectly as a man who cannot be fazed, a man with a 40-year undefeated prosecution record, and who can even take some of the anime mannerisms from the game and actually make them look perfectly natural. If that isn’t amazing, I don’t know what it is.

Overall, the Ace Attorney movie is fun and exciting, and never feels all that awkward combining the anime aesthetic with the live-action atmosphere. While fans of the game will almost certainly enjoy it, I think people unfamiliar with the franchise and even people have been turned off by Miike’s work in the past (perhaps due to their ultra-violence) have a very strong possibility of coming out of the theater satisfied.

One thing that made this showing of Ace Attorney special was that Miike himself was in attendance. Before the film began, there was a 15-minute interview session with the director where he spoke about this film as well as his experience in filmmaking in general. Miike had actually last visited the Rotterdam International Film Festival 12 years ago with Ichi the Killer and some other movies, and he claims that the extremely positive reaction he received in Rotterdam back then was actually the launching point for his international success and why he’s able to do bigger-budget movies today. He spoke about his use of extreme violence not for the sake of violence but to show the strong emotions which drive his characters, and his desire to make films which surprise himself (something I find he has in common with the creative process of Getter Robo and Devilman creator Nagai Go). He also showed great respect for the original source material of Ace Attorney, but pointed out that a good deal had to be done to convert that game format to a film. I have to say that he did a good job in that regard, transferring the excitement of figuring out the cases as a player to watching the characters work to reach their conclusions.

After the interview was over, the person next to me turned to me and asked, “Spreekt u Nederlands?” After I responded “Nee,” we then had the following conversation:

“What was that word he said, ‘man…gu?'”

“Manga.”

“Yes, manga. What is that?”

“It’s Japanese comics.”

“Oh, like Pikachu.”

“Yes, like Pikachu.”

Like Pikachu, indeed.